10 seconds sooner
by EmonyDeborah
Summary: A whole host of events had to fall perfectly into place for Elastigirl to find her husband embracing Mirage. What if just one variable, any variable, had been slightly different, and she had run in ten seconds earlier?


What if Elastigirl had found her husband just a few seconds sooner?

He felt Mirage squirming desperately, trying in vain to escape his slowly tightening grip, her eyes bulging as she pleaded for her life. But that was what she had taken from him, his life. _Their_ lives. They were gone. Everything was gone. He could still hear Helen screaming, begging that the missiles be called off, crying desperately that there were children aboard…

"Bob!" Some small part of him knew she wouldn't want him to kill Mirage, no matter what she had been a part of. The same part was telling him that killing Mirage wouldn't change anything, Helen would still be dead, and their children.

What had been the last thing he had said to his son? Had Dash ever known how proud his father was of him? And Violet, Bob was sure he hadn't told Violet how beautiful she was, how much she was like her mother. And Jack-Jack, his perfect, happy baby, had he even been old enough to know how much he had been loved?

His grip was still getting tighter. Mirage was trying to tell him something, he could see her lips moving as she started to turn blue, but her voice was drowned out by the screaming that wouldn't leave his mind, that was still ringing in his ears. "Bob! Stop!"

Suddenly, he wasn't looking into terrified green eyes, now streaming with tears. Now, brown eyes were staring up into his, and gloved hands stretched up and grabbed his face. "Look at me, Bob. Put her down."

He obeyed without thinking, and Mirage collapsed to the ground, choking and retching.

"She killed you." The newcomer, who _was_ Helen, but couldn't be, shook her head, and he stared down at her, uncomprehending. "You're dead. You're all-they killed all-you're gone." Helen put her finger over his lips to stop his stuttering.

"No, we're not. We survived the crash, Bob." It _was_ her voice, the beautiful husky voice that had teased him on rooftops, the voice that had been filled with joy when she had recited their marriage vows, the voice that had been so viciously cut off barely four hours ago.

"But I heard you screaming, and then she said-"

"She was wrong," Helen said firmly, not even glancing back at Mirage, who was cowering on the ground behind her.

Bob looked down at her for a minute, his mind refusing to process what was obviously in front of him. Very slowly, as if she would disappear if he moved too quickly, he reached up and gently brushed a strand of hair out of her face. The corner of her mouth quirked up into a small smile, and it was her smile, but more importantly it was _her_ , it was _Helen_ , and she was alive and standing in front of him.

"Helen?" His voice was strangled, part of his mind still didn't believe it. She nodded.

Bob's arms had been hanging limp at his sides, but suddenly they were around Helen, pulling her close to him, and he was kissing her, and she was real and alive and so beautiful he could hardly stand it. She was panting when he broke the kiss. He couldn't bear to let go of her, he wrapped his arms tighter around her and buried his face in her hair.

Helen hadn't known exactly what to expect when she took off for the island. She had a lurking suspicion that her husband was in real danger, but she also couldn't shake the fear that he wasn't, that he was, in fact, completely safe and having a great time with the platinum blonde, far away from his home and his family and _her._

But she never expected to find him killing the woman she had so dreaded finding him with. And she wouldn't have believed it, either, if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes. She had reacted instinctively, urging him to stop, forcing him to look into her eyes, trying to get him to snap out of it. He had blinked, and in any other situation, Helen would have blushed at the way he was looking at her; like she was some sort of goddess, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. All while ignoring the woman with the figure of an actual deity who was coughing behind her. Then he was kissing her, like she had been gone for years instead of just a day, and she was taken completely off guard. He hadn't kissed her like this, so fervently and desperately, since they had been superheroes, fighting and coming very close to dying every day. He broke the kiss, leaving her somewhat dazed, then pulled her against his chest with enough force to crush a less flexible woman. Her reaction was a bit delayed, but she wrapped her arms around him, trying to be real and substantial and solid enough to convince him that she was really there.

"Your children may have triggered the alert." Helen stiffened, and Bob let go so she could whirl around to look at the other woman. If the blonde hair hadn't been a dead giveaway, Helen would have recognized that voice anywhere. It was the same woman, she was now sure, who had called Bob the night before. She was finally standing up, and she was rubbing her throat as she looked at them warily.

"What?" Helen snarled.

"Security has been sent into the jungle. You'd better get going." Helen spared half a second to look the woman up and down, and some of her confidence shriveled up as she did. She was easily the most stunning person Helen had ever seen.

Helen believed that Bob loved her, she could hardly believe anything else after that kiss, but how could she believe that he wasn't at least attracted to this woman? That he wasn't thinking of her while he was with Helen, waiting to get back to her?

Helen turned back to her husband, who blinked at her suddenly sour expression, but said nothing as they ran out of the room.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I never really liked that scene where Helen found Mirage and Bob hugging, so I fixed it. And she's even angry at the end, like in the movie, so nothing else is changed. Please review!


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